Conversion

Conversion. Conversion is a process common to all religions in its preliminary sense of ‘conversion of manners’—i.e. the turning of one's life more deliberately toward the goals of the religion in question. But conversion also has a stronger sense, namely, the transfer of a person (or group of people) from one religion to another, or from no religion to belief. Conversion in that stronger sense is an extremely complex phenomenon, having a different status and priority in different religions. Judaism, for example, became highly resistant to seeking converts, not least because Judaism is a particular vocation to one people, and gentiles are already members of the Noachide covenant, and have no need to undertake the laws of Torah in addition.

In some religions the imperative to convert others is non-negotiable. In Christianity it is tied to the view that there is no other way to salvation (John 14. 6). Such conversion involves baptism. In a comparable way, Muslims are under obligation to make known the will and the way of Allāh, revealed in the Qurʾān; yet ‘There is no compulsion in religion’ (Quʾān 2. 256/7), and Muslims recognize that the People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitāb) should be treated with respect, and that they are not obliged to convert to Islam.

The psychology and neurophysiology of conversion are understood, as yet, only in very preliminary ways. At one extreme, the techniques associated with the term brain-washing were explored in connection with religious conversion by W. Sargant, Battle For the Mind (1957). At the other extreme, conversion may be undramatic and a consequence of a long process of reflection. Between the two is the phenomenon of ‘snapping’, in which a convert to one religion or religious movement is precipitated into several others in rapid succession.